Second Crossing
by Luc Court
Summary: Set preepisode 9. A series of vignettes in the military, and a spoon. Rated for minor language. Minor spoilers. Finished.
1. familiarity

**Second Crossing**_  
Set pre-episode 9. A series of vignettes, and a spoon. Rated for minor language. Minor spoilers._

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* * *

__01. familiarity_

If Jean has a fatal flaw, it would be the way he stiffs the tip.

"And that," Fury wastes no time telling him over the bridge of a spoon, "is why you have no luck with women, Havoc."

The clatter of the diner tinkles around them, a chorus of silverware and handwashed plates. An order for fried potatoes comes hollered through the air; the next table over is insisting on ketchup, and lots of it. Jean ignores the buzz, and focuses on his defense.

"I always give at _least_ six percent." Fury's scowl does not change, so Jean rallies the rest of his protest. "Ten percent is supposed to be for outstanding work. When I get a good waitress, I don't hesitate, believe me. How could I have known the last one would be insulted for something like that?"

Fury rolls his eyes. "First off," he begins, imperious, "ten percent is _standard_. Anything less is an insult." Grease swims in the air, flecks of oil suspended on heat. The spoon in his hand waggles in time with his lesson. "Yesterday, you only gave seven-point-five without explanation. Because you didn't tell our waitress what you wanted for better service, she's going to wonder what she did wrong in order to fail ten. Way to go, Havoc, making her feel insecure."

"It's average!"

Jean's back goes stiff for the rest of their breakfast. Predictably, Fury picks up the check.

Fraternizing is, by degrees, punishable in the Amestris Army. So many individuals invest their entire lives in service that they begin as teenagers and sail down predetermined careers, wearing cooking-cutter uniforms and saluting rows of standardized graves. The induction of King Bradley saw the lowering of the age bar to a mere sixteen. There's talk of decreasing it to fifteen if possible, along with the promise of a healthy pension should a person last until retirement. With so much of one's life spent in the company of fellow soldiers, it's almost impossible not to blur the line.

Hence the regulations. But the diner on Second Crossing is a known exception, tolerating the rubbing of shoulders and ranks. Generations of the military have camped out in the sticky-plastic booths as effectively as a trench war, embarking on assaults towards their neighbors to capture paper napkins and condiments.

At his most generous calculation, Jean Havoc has determined that he's spent more than one-third of his military career inside Second Crossing. Eating, reviewing new work assignments, even sleep--Jean has worn a hollow down in his preferred seat, second window to the left. Third when that booth is already full. He has memorized the faux-grain of the table -- plastic nubbing stained with grape juice and syrup, chip in the corner from an overeager fork -- to the point where he knows it better than his own bedroom's ceiling.

That familiarity might bother another man. Jean prides himself on pragmaticism. He'd told Fury once that all he wanted in a woman was that she knew how to scramble eggs, that everything else was negotiable. Tall, short, brown hair, blonde -- none of the details mattered except for that one, and Jean considered himself open-minded about it. Fury had laughed, asked why. Jean's only answer, painstakingly offered as any childhood secret, was that the food reminded him of home.

Cooking is not Jean's strong point. Gender has nothing to do with it -- Jean just knows his own weaknesses, and food happens to be one of them. He is limited in his ability to prepare most meals, especially those cobbled together on his meager paycheck. Despite surviving the ranks to Second Lieutenant, he is a novice at preparation of canned soups, and alternately overboils or underheats. Jean particularly hates handling cold potatoes. The texture is slimy; the juices that leak are stained with white yeast. He wipes himself clean of the slippery, pale paste, but ghost-memories cause him to shudder all through the rest of the day.

The food industry workers are Jean's saviors. He likes Second Crossing because they're open twenty-four hours around the clock, and because he can always expect to find someone else from the military there. Late-night cravings submit to the diner. Havoc can rack up his bottomless coffee cups and watch the other officers swap in and out, and occasionally call one over for conversation.

That was how Jean first got to know Kain Fury. He'd seen the other officer around the halls before, had even caught a glimpse of Fury's startled eyes when Jean had swaggered in reeking of a secretary's perfume, but they'd only begun to talk by accident. The other booths had all been full, all except the tiny quarters of plastic seat-cushions at Fury's table, so Jean and his friends had conquered the territory with finesse.

Jean had fetched up against Fury and resorted to a winning smile by way of excuse, right before a notably portly sergeant had tried to squash his own bulk in with them.

Jean had engaged in witty conversation with Fury's shoulder. Fury passed the sugar, nodding blandly to the fate of Jean's latest girlfriend. The tale finished halfway through the pancakes and had confused itself with the syrup jar, so Jean resorted to anecdotes about the weather right before he asked if Fury was doing anything after breakfast and if he wanted to hit the firing range.

Now Fury listens to all the failed-date stories, whether or not there's anyone else around to force the two of them into proximity. He's always willing. Jean might collide with Fury in the hall, or shift uneasily at the military cafeteria, his hands sculpting measurements in the air. But inevitably, there is always the diner booth and Fury's patient expression hovering over another rancid cup of ground coffee-beans.

The last girl Jean had been with -- the one that made him _swear_ to Fury that he'd take a break from dating, and he'd even mean it this time -- was one of Second Crossing's waitresses. Charlotte was her name, a thin girl bordering on sickly, prone to fainting spells and gasping. The food industry was not kind to her body. Charlotte's toes would swell red as cherries from all the standing; Jean would take her feet in his hands and rub them in basins of warm salt water, easing away the tension as if a simple massage could unmake an entire world of toils.

On the day their relationship had finally soured, the weather had just broken from winter into spring. Jean had picked up pastries from a bakery down the road, and had smuggled Charlotte out during a break to coax them into her. They'd sat on one of the outside café patios, wirewick frames scattered on the pavement like forlorn pigeons waiting for feed. Waxed paper rustled as Jean unwrapped the first sugary treat and then offered it forth.

By Charlotte's fifth refusal, Jean took a bite himself. This did not encourage her. Her hair was long that spring, and it draped itself in a shield around her cheeks. When Jean reached out to her, he'd had to part the brunette strands like water weeds, her face the fish beneath.

Nervous of the guilty white carton that sat between them, Jean asked why she was so steadfast about not eating.

"It's because I think about jumping," she'd confessed, eyes fixed on the clock tower that hulked beside the main Officer's Exchange, eternity keeping company with the wan camel-colored jackets and lace-up boots. Her voice was as little as the rest of her, which was what had initially attracted Jean in the first place: that fragility which made him want to wrap her in gauze and keep her safe. When she spoke, it was always without remorse.

"All the time. Mostly after lunch. That's why I don't eat." Wrapping her narrow arms around herself, Charlotte shivered despite the afternoon warmth. "I heard that the impact will cause your stomach to explode, and then everyone would have to deal with half-digested corn and bread all over the sidewalks, cleaning up the mess. I can't stand skipping lunch, because I get hungry. But if I eat, that means I'm stuck for another day. What do you think I should do?"

In the distance, the clock tower coughed out three chimes, and fell silent.

"Eggs," Jean had replied at last, abruptly.

Charlotte turned her desperate deer-eyes towards him. "Eggs?"

"Yes." Jean's nod was firm. He didn't look at her, but only fixed his gaze resolutely on the Officer's Exchange, blotting out the clock tower from his peripherals. "Scrambled."

_You really can pick them_, Fury sighed when he heard it all later, about how, at the end, Charlotte had stopped talking to Jean and that was that. Even though the two still cross paths at the diner, neither of them want to interact for long. Fury is remarkably sympathetic in a surprisingly understated way, so Jean doesn't say no when all the booths are full save Charlotte's section, and Fury makes the suggestion to eat back at his place.

Jean doesn't remember kissing her goodbye, that last time. There is a smooth oyster where her mouth should have been in his mind; all that week he'd been distracted trying to figure out why. When the memo hit his desk saying to get in his hours time logged by that Friday, the words ran together in his mind. _October time is Friday. _No Charlotte. No schedule either, but Fury had taken up the slack and written out Jean's assignment for him, dropping it on his desk at 3:45 pm. Fury had also handled dinner that night, which was good since Jean promptly got drunk and passed out on Fury's couch.

At the diner these days, Jean watches the stranger that his girlfriend's become and still thinks, _there stands the most beautiful thing in the world_. Afterwards, he wonders if this makes him somehow _creepy_, to crave his ex as an abstract _want_ rather than a real person.

He asks Fury this once, and the other man is quiet for a long time before he shakes his head, and says _no_.

Second Crossing is Jean's habit. He returns to it even when the bad memories are mixed with good, just like he chain-smokes in bed sometimes, ashtray balanced on his chest. All his lunches are prepared in Second's greasy kitchens, and most of his silverware at home secretly belongs to the diner -- three spoons, five forks, one syrup jar and two saucers. A handful of jelly scoops, strawberry and grape. Salt and pepper shakers. Sugar packets.

Fury is his steady companion through all of this. Fury is the sidekick, the weaker friend, who hates Second Crossing's bathrooms ever since he went into the men's stalls once and screamed at the sight of a huge, black water-beetle sitting on the flush valve. Jean likes the fact that Fury can prepare pasta rations without burning them and doesn't seem to mind when Jean steals an extra helping.

He saw Fury get angry only once that he can recall -- a transformation as bizarre as an alchemist's, the way Fury's goofy little frown shifted into pitilessness, his eyes stripped of their naïve blundering. It had been when one soldier had been jesting about Second Lieutenant Hawkeye and Jean's compatibility together. Hands rounded, cupping the air as he colorfully described the woman through gesture, the man hadn't expected Fury's palm to come slamming down on the table, flipping over a butter knife by accident when it clipped the plate.

"Knock it off," Fury had growled. And, startled, the other soldiers fell silent.

Fair's fair, Jean figures. But when Jean asked if Fury was hot for the Second Lieutenant -- politely, between friends, with tact -- Fury only glanced away with that same unforgiving blankness.

"It's funny," is all the other man said. "No one expects me to lay claim to things."

"Like?"

And Fury hadn't answered.

Jean doesn't really understand Fury sometimes. The Sergeant-Major who doesn't joke when he should about certain lewd connotations, and who prefers to wait until the showers are all empty until he takes his turn. Who defends Second Lieutenant Hawkeye but doesn't seem to notice when the woman's hair is slipping out of its barrette and tickling the back of her neck, or the taut shape of her calves when she walks.

Since Hawkeye rarely comes up in conversation, Jean figures Fury is just hiding his romantic interests. That would make sense. It would explain why Jean doesn't comprehend what Fury means when the man scorns the chances of relationships for military officers -- how they're impossible, how nothing works out -- and also the fact that Jean suspects he doesn't really _know_ Fury. Not one bit.

Fury, who is so much like a woman to Jean's mind, and not at all.


	2. possibilities

_02. possibilities_

By the time he is twenty, Kain has mastered the art of the can opener. It's in self-defense. Some -- most --_ all_ of his friends have bad habits; everyone in the military does, but Havoc would be the all-out winner. What the man consumes may just kill him. Diet, Kain knows, is a prolonged game of bullet roulette. If you're careless, you'll end up paying the price.

And Kain isn't comfortable with carelessness. He's not made for it, with a weak stomach and a brow that breaks into a cold sweat whenever the floorboards creak in winter. Surprises give him that sick little flutter in his gut. Surprises can't be planned for, by _definition_, and accidents are only one second from going out of control. From there, it all tumbles down into disaster. You can't _erase_ a tragedy. Warning labels exist for a reason.

Havoc is not like him. That's because Havoc is crazy.

Within two steps of entering Kain's apartment, the Second Lieutenant always tries to eat the nearest object that comes to hand -- including bread so moldy that it resembles a mossy sweater -- so rather than ferry his friend to the hospital, Kain provides offerings in the form of instant meals. They're gestures of mercy, for his own sanity. Kain's great-aunt once was stricken by a nasty case of salmonella after consuming an undercooked chicken fillet, and ever since, Kain has ordered his food crispy.

The can opener is part of that. So is the frying pan, the thrice-scrubbed steel pot, and a battered kettle. Kain always watches Havoc with a combination of camaraderie and dread whenever the man orders eggs-over-easy off the menus of local diners, picking house specials and food off other people's plates with equal nonchalance.

Havoc is possessed by one of the most subdued self-destructive impulses that Kain has ever seen, with the exception of Lt. Colonel Mustang. It's not just Havoc's dietary habits that are lethal. Smoking, drinking, dating strange women -- it's _bad_ for him, it's dangerous, and Kain always wonders why Havoc doesn't choose to play it safe. That the reason it's so painful to watch Havoc is because the man falls madly, deeply in love with strangers in the same way that drunks drive off bridges, chasing the moon. He is hypnotized too easily. He's enthralled with what pleases his eye, and believes in second chances too readily.

Kain knows better. He _knows_ how quickly things can change from bad to worse; how some acts cannot be undone, which is why it's so important to take care of what you can before it's too late. Plan out everything ahead of time. And then when disaster strikes, grab your pistol and your nerve -- there's no time for distraction from a pair of breasts, a cigar.

But Havoc has a shorter attention span than Kain when it comes to caution, and an endless fascination for the fanciful. It makes him reckless. Like the time that Havoc discovers that fish luminesce -- no, _really_ luminsece, tiny scales glimmering under the aquarium light. He'd claimed over and over that the phrase was metaphor only, but one afternoon in early winter, Havoc swaggers through the door and is attracted instantly to Kain's newest acquisition.

"You own fish now?"

Kain ignores the question at first, staring at the tank. Every time he looks at it, he finds himself wondering why fish need to shine, move like mica-chips underwater. Don't predators find them easier that way?

Aren't they calling attention to themselves like that?

Havoc is still waiting for an answer, staring at him patiently. Kain coughs. "Yeah. They're my sister's," he excuses belatedly, smoothing his hair under his hand in stifled embarrassment. "I'm just taking care of them while she's away visiting some cousins up north. But I'm always worried about them... fish are so fragile. I keep thinking, I'm going to step out one day and come back to find them all bobbing on the surface."

"Like mushrooms," Havoc observes mulishly, toothpick twitching in his mouth as he leans closer to the tank. "Floating on the top of an onion soup bowl."

Kain scowls. "Do you _live_ on your stomach, Havoc? Stop looking at them like that," he chastises immediately, watching Havoc loom in predatory hunger over the tiny creatures. "They're not edible."

"You were the one who interrupted me from dinner, Fury." Nonplussed, Havoc swivels away from the tank. "I came over because you said you wanted an excuse not to go to Second for poker tonight. That's going to disappoint a lot of officers," he adds sagely, sliding hands in pockets. "You provide them a valuable source of income each week."

Kain rolls his eyes. "I don't like betting if I don't have anything higher than a pair, you know that. Hang up your coat this time instead of dropping it on the floor, okay?"

"Being predictable and playing it safe are two different things, Fury." Havoc obeys partway, slinging his jacket over the nearest chair without sparing a glance to see if it lands or not. "You always complain about Second Crossing because of the food. Hasn't killed _me_ yet."

The Second Lieutenant doesn't bother to notice when Kain represses a shudder. He's already disappearing into the kitchen, a small walk-in that is barely wide enough for a man to turn around in without bumping his hips to the sink. Kain, trailing behind, is forced to hover at the doorway while Havoc digs through the cupboards with a single-minded intensity.

"I don't have anything better than that," Kain protests when Havoc discovers the rows of generic-brand soup cans in the pantry, and thrusts one out in silent accusation. "I'm lucky enough to afford an _apartment_, Havoc, cut me some slack. You know what the pay's like." Pausing as he watches Havoc grunt and then peruse the label. "Do you even know how to open one of those?"

Giving the can a shake, Havoc gives a growl of a nod. "Sure I do. You just... hold on," he interrupts himself, setting the container on the counter and rummaging through his pockets. A glint of metal peeks through one hand; a spoon that is gripped as deftly as a knife. Tapping it against the soup can with all the concentration of a scholar, Havoc tilts his head to listen to the dull ringing. "You tap it a couple times like this to depressurize the contents... "

Astonished, Kain only blinks.

"... and then you just pop off the top."

Motivated by visions of dismemberment-by-cutlery, Kain sputters. "Put that thing _down_. And where'd you get it, anyway? It's not one of mine." Peering at the utensil with growing dread, the dark-haired Sergeant-Major frowns. "Hey... is that one of Second Crossing's spoons?"

"Maybe."

"That's _stealing_." Affronted with every inch of his sub-average height, Kain snatches the implement away, slapping it flat underneath his hand. It hits the counter with a morose _clunk_.

Mournful, Havoc regards the captive silverware. "How am I supposed to eat dinner now?"

"With your fingers." Holding stern against Havoc's wounded sulk for all of two seconds, Kain attempts the scowl again. "I'll make the soup. I know how. Get out of the kitchen before... before you _hurt_ yourself."

Havoc doesn't seem too worried, only sidling past Kain with a whiff of pine aftershave. He wanders to the nearest window and levers it up with a squeak, retrieving a battered pack of cigarettes from a pocket. His shirt is partially untucked, flopping over his regulation belt with the eagle buckle; it's after-hours, but Havoc sometimes forgets to wear his clothes properly during work, too.

Kain pretends to ignore the smell of tobacco as he rummages through kitchen drawers for normal spoons, normal ladles and _normal_ bowls.

"The Lt. Colonel said something weird the other day." Cigarettes on his knee as he searches for his lighter, and Havoc swaps nicotine into his mouth, toothpick out. "He said, 'everyone secretly believes that they're _good_ at something, or even the very best. It's their justification for remaining alive.'" Fiddling his knuckles, Havoc snaps the toothpick in two and promptly throws it out the window despite therisk of pedestrians below. "Why do you think he said that?"

"I don't know," Kain confesses, wrinkling up his nose in the exact way his mother always told him it'd stick. "It does sound funny. Lt. Colonel Mustang has a lot of responsibilities. And I like working for him -- what would happen to _us_, if something happened to him?"

"You asked me that _last_ week, Fury." Heaving an exaggerated sigh, Havoc shifts his weight so that he can kick up his ankles on the nearest endtable, boots making dark _thunks_ when they come to rest on the wood.

"But --"

"We'll deal with it when it happens. Hey, is the soup done yet or can we go to Second Crossing?"

When it's wintertime, Kain's apartment is never insulated properly. Heat oozes out the cracks like an oiled cat, so even when Kain tapes blankets over the windows, the chill sneaks in. His neighborhood block is filled with underling officers, all assigned to subpar quarters as a test of their immune systems. Havoc drinks cup after cup of coffee in order to stay warm whenever he's over. The caffeine makes him edgy after the third, until he's drumming his fingers on the tables and playing impromptu percussion off the lampshades.

Havoc has a steady hand with a rifle. Steadier than Kain's, no matter how much coffee has been downed. Havoc is a better driver except when it rains, because he takes the corners too sharply and lets the wheels skid; even though he's cavalier and solemn by degrees, the Second Lieutenant is reliable with all his talents, and that's why the Lt. Colonel trusts him with a gun, trusts him on missions that anyone else would have needed backup for.

It makes Kain feel like it's all he can do just to keep up. Sometimes.

The apartment slowly fills with the salted, greasy smell of chicken broth. Kain finds two bowls, both matched. There's not enough space in his kitchen for a dining surface, so Kain brings the meal out to the living room. He sets it down on the coffeetable, on top of a couple of ragged dishtowels to keep the cheap wood from being stained by heat and humidity. Havoc pulls himself over the back of a couch and sprawls while he waits for the liquid to cool, dripping ash carelessly across the floor from the cigarette in his fingers.

Schooling mindlessly together, the fish flicker through the artificial plants of the aquarium, making endless, shining loops.

Across the table, Havoc gives in and slurps a mouthful of soup, tilting the bowl up with both hands. His adam's apple bobs, jerky with hunger. Havoc closes his eyes halfway when he drinks, blankly rapt upon his business.

It's a moment broken out of time: Havoc's throat, the small nick of a shaving cut just underneath his jaw, the splay of his silverware in one set of long, lanky fingers. The neutral, dead smell of winter outside, distinctive only because of the way it's filled with a blank chill and burning dust from the radiators. Generic soup on the stove. It's a moment that, Kain knows, won't be there forever, because accidents will catch up eventually. Whether on the field of war or as innocently as an allergic reaction from scrambled eggs -- safety only lasts as long as you can stretch it out.

When he catches Kain looking, Havoc lowers the dish and flashes him a quick smile. "Thanks for the meal, by the way."

"No," Kain answers, the words numb out of his mouth. "Thank _you_."


	3. family

_03. family_

_The difference between a spy and an intelligence officer_, said the first manual Maes ever picked up for his classes, breathing in the fresh-inked pages, _is that one of them is employed by your side._

That was the first and only justification when he began his training. As a teenager, Maes's hands grew faster than the rest of him, leaving knobbly wrists and thin fingers that liked to dance coins over tables and snap handkerchiefs as dramatic flags. Older, and he learned how to slip pocketbooks out of people's jackets while he was walking by, building the steps towards the deft acquisitions of orders out of briefcases and sealed envelopes from the glove compartments of cars.

Maes has a special relationship with sensitive information: he touches it, and it disappears.

He wasn't the best in his class. That honor belonged to a boy named Jim Farrell, who won by dint of being able to _keep_ his prizes once he'd caught them. Jim ended up with everyone's house keys, homework lists, and locker combinations. No one could figure out where he was hiding them, not even the bicycle that had disappeared wholesale from its chain at the flagpole.

The lessons worked. Within a year, all the students learned that possessions were transitory, exchanging objects through the chain-connections of theft. Intelligence officers -- that was what the classes were meant to develop, but no one was fooled after the first year except for the rows of bleakly optimistic parents. Jim Farrell was the best, until he disappeared inexplicably just before graduation and the teachers didn't bat an eye.

While they were all growing up together and Jim was still on the prowl, Maes began to carry photographs in his pockets while hiding his lunch money in his shoes. Jim stole the pictures instead, but occasionally returned them when they didn't appear to be useful. Maes's earliest defense against theft was sentimentalism. He learned that memories were only valuable to their original owners.

It stays that way as he gets older.

As a full-fledged _intelligence officer_ of Amestris, Maes likes to think of himself as a magician when he's off-duty. The description makes it easier to go home and touch his wife and daughter with the same hands that pass knives as neatly as pocket change.

Magic. Maes likes to work it. Flowers out of nowhere to surprise Gracia and send her mouth shaped round in a surprised 'O'; sparkling barrettes for Elysia, plucked from behind his daughter's ear and laughingly displayed before he tucks them in her hair. With just a little effort, Maes can turn the world beautiful, _just like that_, making mysteries innocent again instead of something to fear.

Hands are multi-purpose tools. They can cosset and they can kill -- just like Maes can, changing roles as needed while he works undercover. They take away, but they can also give back.

Maes keeps himself in practice on his own fellow soldiers. An _intelligence officer_, he reminds himself with a jaunty, jaded laugh -- acceptable because he is on the payroll. Even though he has no real need, Maes searches the military jackets that pass him by, identical blue wrappings that are only made unique through the contents of their wallets. He keeps himself stocked with pencils this way, occasionally reproducing the exact implement that another officer misplaced earlier. By the end of the day when he is winding down, Maes goes back and reshuffles everything into other people's clothes, returning the pilfered objects with a careless nonchalance.

Afterwards, he likes to stand by the window and relax, sleek hands up, interlaced behind his head. Proud. Accomplished. That's when he indulges in stealing from himself, replacing pragmatic reality with dreams, just like a conjurer believing in his own smoke and mirrors. He likes to think about what else is left to him, the impossible prize that can someday be accomplished through a pinch of _intelligence_ and even more _art_. The last magic he can work on the one who needs it most.

The particulars change every time. When days are sunny, Maes thinks about alchemical discoveries, tomes unearthed by accident on a mission that will give Roy the edge he needs to barrel all the way to the top. On rainy days, it's politics.

Maes loves his assignments. They take him away from his wife and child, but he waits for the day when he will be able to say, with a warm bellyful of satisfaction, _I've found something new for you, Roy. The very best trick of all._

He imagines the look that will dawn upon his friend's face, the slow glow of shock filling Roy's eyes upon the realization of freedom.

Roy has enslaved himself to life through the trappings of guilt. Maes can't complain about the principle; anything that keeps Roy breathing is acceptable to him, whether the means is vice or virtue. In the meantime, the spy sifts through the detritus of life, collecting the valuable tokens that will someday buy Roy's conscience back for him.

Notecards. Reports. Interesting pens bearing the maker's mark on a dozen different nibs.

And silverware.

Maes instantly recognizes the spoon that he lifts from Fury's pocket when the Sergeant-Major bumbles by, arms full of paper folders. It's a Second Crossing piece. The bevel of the edge is familiar; it brings back memories that smell like steamed plastic and jelly. Looking at the spoon reminds Maes of the times he'd sat with Roy when they were both students, rattling off cram notes together, drowning in homework assignments. Counting packets of emptied creamer, rolling used sugar packets into pink and white tubes. Second Crossing's booths were green-lined when they'd both been in the academy; a puce that, many joked, accidental food spills could only improve.

Maes has a strong conviction in the worth of memories. They are impossible to steal. His pictures are always there, endless amounts, each one ready and waiting on even the coldest day when his breath has frozen in his throat and he's chafing fingers to keep the circulation flowing.

Photographs are reminders of why you keep going, of why you reload. No one can take the past away, not even the best of spies.

When he finally delivers the news, Maes will have a camera ready so he can snap a picture of the shock of Roy's face, and immortalize it forever. On holidays, he will have extra prints made and included in gift cards. _Look_, he'll say to Elysia each year, eyes up and watching the silent indignation of the Flame Alchemist sitting by the tinsel-decked fir, _here's a picture of mister Roy, caught **completely** off-guard._

Maes knows he'll want to remember the exact way Roy's features will shift on that day, moving from confusion into shock. Into fear, maybe -- Maes knows his old friend too well and he knows how Roy has clung to his own self-damnation -- but maybe, eventually, into relief.

Maes also knows that Roy will forget that moment all too easily in the future, as the years will go by and they will both grow old and grey while Elysia discovers that Gracia's high-heels finally fit along with short-skirt dresses. Elysia will become an adult. They will all grow _old_, and with that will come forgetting.

So Maes will record it. Just as he documents everything else, because life moves much too fast. Photographs remain the only objects he keeps retention of, tucked away by hands that rearrange the location of everything else -- coins, keyrings, grocery shopping lists. Material objects can pass away. Memories won't.

Unworried about Fury's dining options and the status of Second Crossing's supplies, Maes flips the spoon over his knuckles while he listens to the closing sounds of the nearby offices. Everyone's going home. Maes should do the same, whistling with his hands tucked against his belt-loops, pushing open the front door to be greeted with a waft of Gracia's lilac perfume, his legs attacked by the eager grabby arms of his daughter.

Instead, Maes uses the spoon to prop up the window, fresh air trickling past the stigma of memory. It catches the sun like a lick of silver, and Maes smiles at the glint of metal. Somewhere, two ghosts are sitting at a green-skinned booth and haggling over battered library books. The teenage Roy is scowling. He's taking bites of Maes's toast without realizing he's eating from the wrong plate, but the specter of Maes doesn't mind; he only watches, and smiles, and keeps the afternoon alive forever in his mind.

Leaving the window open, the spy packs his papers for home while the breeze wafts in behind him.


	4. intimacy

_04. intimacy_

During certain afternoons when the paperwork has just come back claiming that various military branches are merrily stabbing others, Liza goes to the women's bathroom and turns on one of the sinks. She yanks up the metal rod that depresses the stopper, plugging the drain, and wraps her slender fingers around the neck of the faucet while she waits for the basin to fill. It's an act not unlike strangulation; Liza had ten different angles to study during basic training, and this could resemble 3-C. She discarded that manual with disdain when she'd graduated into marksmanship classes, and has never regretted it once.

No. This foreplay with the sink is merely _routine_, and Liza's advanced training has taught her to love procedures, immerse herself in them like a favored sexual partner. Routine helps to keep a sniper calm on the battlefield, because the steadiness of their hands is what will turn a battle, along with the duration of their breath. Inhale. Aim steady. Shoot.

Liza likes standards. She enjoys stability, even while recognizing that permanency is only an illusion. During the times when the military has settled down, Liza likes to pretend that every day is _forever_, but munition crates never lasted past 3 am in Ishbal and neither did peace.

After discovering that someone kept the window open overnight in what was primarily a potential security breach, and secondly, _left the office cold_, Liza yanks the prop away and slides the window closed. Even in late autumn, soldiers continue to leave all the doors wide, keeping their faces turned towards those avenues of potential escape. They focus on the breeze instead of the paperwork. Messy.

She does not have the patience for this. A spoon is the offending object this time; it had been a book prior to that, someone's roundabout commentary of the usefulness of hardcover tutelage. She does not have the patience. Communications is warring with Local Artillery -- and winning in a glorious bout of semantics -- and it's up to Liza to keep the damage under control.

Both hands on the side of the sink now. Liza watches the water gutter out of the spigot, bloating one drop into twenty until eventually her face rises out of the soap-stained porcelain depths to greet her.

On the shelf next to the hand-soap, the spoon broods contentedly underneath the sickly fluorescent lights.

Liza knows about reflections. She's lived by them as a marksman, following a code that betrays any who do not rely on their vision and that of their enemies. Rudimentary scopes which clip onto her rifles are useful for when Liza needs to draw a bead on her targets, but any stray glints of light will betray her position as the sun gleams off that glass eye. Binoculars are the same way. If you can see a person, the rule goes, they can also see you -- so learn to work around straight lines and memorize the curve of metals.

Liza still moves about her daily business with half her attention fixed on any nearby surface. When she eats at the local diners, she watches the wavering figures of the servers as they distort themselves in her plastic apple juice cups. In public bathrooms, Liza never lets herself move near the stalls without glancing at the mirrors first, ignoring the distant predation of her own expression.

She doesn't like many public places. There are too many avenues of vulnerability, too much _space_ outside her peripherals that is filled with potential threat. Assassins. Accidents. Liza remembers that she didn't use to be this tense, but that was a lifetime ago, in a world before Ishbal. Pointless now. The last time she allowed herself to relax her guard, it was at the Officers' Diner, and that had been a disaster. Second Crossing -- that was the technical name, but people liked to joke about the O.D. as a companion to the O.C.. Liza visits the Officer's Club just as frequently as Second Crossing now, which meant she only attends when she can't avoid either.

The spoon she confiscated looks like it could belong there: chipped, pitted visitor to a thousand mouths, like some barracks-boy who'd gone diseased before the war was even halfway over. Second Crossing, to Liza's eyes, is the same thing. Communal.

Not that she's picky. Cafeteria options during Ishbal were limited to tins of cold meat and sauce -- always cold, because no one had any appetite to eat when the sun was baking them stiff and their supply bags with them. Liza can't claim fear of bacterial contagion, or haughtiness. She's too jaded to be squeamish. Ishbal saw to that.

But she's not completely impervious to illness. Liza's immune system has always been on the edge since the war, whittled down to the bone from having to fend off a million unseen virii. It likes to trigger itself when she's been exposed to stomach bugs. Second Crossing was full of them, but mere nausea alone hadn't been the worst part of her experiences there.

It had been the humiliation.

Sloppy of her, really. The fat slice of ham that had gone along with her hash browns must have been cooked improperly; Liza had seen spots halfway through the meal, and had excused herself hastily in fear of dry heaves. She'd pushed her way through the rickety tables and into the first cubbyhole she saw with a woman's mark above it, hoping desperately that the bathroom stalls would all be empty.

It took her several minutes to steady herself, breathing in deep draughts of bleach while she bent over the nearest sink. Her head spun like a cork. At first she didn't know if she'd throw up, if her lower intestines would rebel -- or both at once -- and she resisted the urge to curl up prone upon the cool linoleum tile floor, knees to her chest like a sick child in need of comfort.

When the knock came, she tried to straighten up, staring at her own face in the mirror and hoping that she looked normal enough to claim she'd been rinsing her mouth.

To her horror, it was the voice of Lt. Colonel Mustang that trickled in.

"Lieutenant Hawkeye?" Another rap. "Are you all right in there?"

Her voice sounded very small when she answered.

"Yes."

"Are you sure?" A pause. Liza could clearly imagine the man poised outside the door, knuckles resting gently against the cheap-painted wood, expression quizzical. "Would you like me to send someone in for you?"

Eyes down, fixated on the empty basin while she limed her thoughts with prayers against vomit, Liza gripped the corners of the sink and hoped desperately that the Lt. Colonel would not walk in and discover her moment of weakness. The last thing she needed was to appear vulnerable. She couldn't afford that.

Ever.

She hasn't been back voluntarily to Second Crossing since.

The sinks in the women's room on the fifth floor can't really compare to Second Crossing's wide-mouthed metal basins, but Liza can make do. Once the water settles, she leans over the sink, watching the surface of the liquid keenly. She gauges it, noting every stray ripple. Close enough that a slight waver on her part would dip her nose into the liquid -- but Liza is perfectly, perfectly still.

Down the hall, someone's door slams; the kinetic impact causes the pool to shiver. Just a little.

This breathing technique was the hardest for her class to master. They were forced to learn it at field camps to teach them the importance of being motionless. More than half the students failed. Liza remembers heads bent over bowls, kneeling in the dirt, hands twisted behind student backs while all the apprentice marksmen stared at the water -- like oracles waiting for their futures to rise out of their own reflections. _There_, an honorable discharge. _There_, a gut-wound that would leave the victim squealing for days until they finally bled to death, skin paste-white and drained.

_There_, the execution of a prisoner-of-war, head down, wrists bound, hearing the click of the gun above you just before it nuzzles against your skull.

Each tiny pant of her breath is absorbed into the liquid. Back in training, they were frog-marched out at dawn, shivering in thin cotton shirts. Here at Central, it's afternoon, but the rooms are as brisk as winter. The office air is still chilled from the open window; it frosts her cheeks as she waits patiently, feeling the mechanics of her body slowing, easing away into nothingness. In the silence -- as Liza's ears adjust automatically by degrees, tuning themselves to higher sensitivities -- small noises boom. Liza listens carefully to them all, muscles locked in a blurred soup of tension, waiting for any visitors to intrude.

By the time the door could finish swinging open, Liza would be daubing her hands in the sink, no sign of her meditations lingering to betray her.

Liza's mother taught her suspicion and precision. How to save receipts for a year past the purchase date, scraps of paper stacked neatly together with their typewriter blue letters, organized by clips. There is love between them, but expectations of achievement as well, and Liza prefers a cool tone to the monthly reports she sends home. Letters detail her state of health and the latest rifle upgrades. Everything is mechanical; the formula is predictable and steady, with nothing of arguments or the soppy quarrels Liza has seen plague other officers who retain contact with their parents.

Everyone is absent when she sticks her head out of the bathroom. They could be at lunch. Fury and Havoc must have already departed; no sign of Hughes, not that there ever is. Other men apply lingering aftershaves to their throats, but Hughes has nothing at all. It makes Liza wonder sometimes, how there's nothing to track his presence when he's gone. Hughes is the only man who can sneak up on her, even when she's on alert, and if she hadn't seen the man's service record, it would make her uneasy. It still does.

The tips of her bangs itch her chin. She rubs her nose. Her fingers smell tangy, metallic from the stolen spoon, and the fragrance causes her to pull the utensil out of her pocket and study it once more. It's chipped, dented on the handle where someone must have bent it back as a joke and not been able to fix it. Liza doesn't know where it belongs, but it could be the cousin of any mass-use utensil, visitor to a thousand anonymous mouths.

Giving a sigh, she crosses the field of empty desks and heads towards the Lt. Colonel's personal office.

Behind the door is Lt. Colonel Mustang. Liza hesitates, wondering if he, too, is absent -- and then there's a rustle of papers, a minute cough of a throat that believes it's all alone, and hence safe to clear itself of congestion.

Liza is an enemy to that privacy. She lingers in the hall, eyes balancing the sheen off a nearby window and the shadows under the doorway equally, gauging the proximity of bodies that she cannot directly see. Finally she raps with brisk efficiency on the door, and marches straight in once the Lt. Colonel calls permission to enter.

Mustang blinks when the spoon hits his desk, right on top of a report of local importation violations. He lifts one supple eyebrow. "What would you like me to do about this, Second Lieutenant?"

"I expect you to instill some _discipline_, Colonel." Liza watches her commanding officer pick up the spoon in his ungloved fingers, studying it as a geologist might consider the difference between a fossil and petrified horse shit. "All windows are supposed to be shut and locked each evening. Else, we risk a lapse in security to what _should_ be restricted areas. I found this being used to hold open a window when I came in this morning, which means anything could have happened over the night."

Mustang does not seem impressed. "A thief would break in anyway," he shrugs, slouching his chin into one hand. He tilts his cheek into his palm in order to look up at her: a sidelong, muted expression that simmers on the edge of his eyelids.

"It's the principle," Liza retorts tartly, unmoved. Then, "And that's not counting all the insects and other pests that can enter, sir. Please remind the officers that they must follow procedures when packing up for the evening. Amestris still has its enemies."

The warning does not have the desired effect. Mustang continues to turn the spoon over in his hands, fascinated by some quirk in the metal. "I can't believe it's another one of these things," he announces suddenly. "It must be the fifth time this week I've ended up with something from there..."

"It was at the window near Sergeant-Major Fury's and Second Lieutenant Havoc's desks. I would assume it belonged to one of them." Catching Mustang's attention begin to wander away, Liza hisses a stern sigh. "These kinds of lapses _cannot_ be tolerated, Colonel. How would you explain a security violation?"

Heaving an exaggerated sigh, Roy slides open the lowest right drawer of his desk. The contents rattle. He tosses the spoon carelessly inside, where it lands with a disturbingly metallic clatter. To Liza's primed senses, it sounds like an entire kitchen's worth of silverware.

She doesn't know _why_ the Colonel would be saving up such things, harboring trinkets like an army of toy soldiers, but she doesn't get a chance to ask before he shoves the drawer closed.

"Don't worry, Second Lieutenant." The left corner of Mustang's mouth pulls up, but the attempted smile is weak, and dissolves after only a heartbeat. He turns his wrist, sliding thereports away like so much driftwood until they bump against a penholder and his ignition gloves. "I'll do my best to make certain that everything will return safely home in the end."

Hawkeye quirks an eyebrow. "Even dishes, sir?"

"Anything." Flattening his hand over the pale fire-stamped gloves, Mustang gives a slight inclination of his head. "No matter how small."


End file.
